


home is just another word for you

by outruntheavalanche



Category: Pitch (TV 2016)
Genre: Belonging, F/M, Free Agency, Future Fic, Het Big/Little Bang Challenge 2018, Mixed Media, Relationship Negotiation, Searching for Home
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-02
Updated: 2018-10-02
Packaged: 2019-07-18 06:06:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16112402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outruntheavalanche/pseuds/outruntheavalanche
Summary: Ginny’s somehow the last to find out.She’s got the At Bat app on her phone, she checks MLB Trade Rumors daily—not just good for trade rumors, apparently!—and she has most of her teammates and their general manager on speed dial, but she’s somehow the last one on the team to find out that Mike Lawson is coming back to the Padres.The prodigal son is returning home.To be the next pitching coach of the San Diego Padres.





	home is just another word for you

**Author's Note:**

> Mike retires following Ginny’s second season. Six years later (let’s say, for the sake of argument, Mike was a first ballot Hall of Famer) he gets hired by the Padres to be the pitching coach. That would make Ginny about twenty-nine—and eligible for free agency following the season. 
> 
> Shoutout to [](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/blastellanos/profile)[**blastellanos**](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/blastellanos/)!!!! Thanks for all your help!!!!!! I ❤️ you!!!!
> 
> Title from "You're My Home," by Billy Joel.

_“Sometimes home isn't four walls, it's two arms and a heartbeat.”_  
— anonymous

Ginny’s somehow the last to find out. 

She’s got the At Bat app on her phone, she checks MLB Trade Rumors daily—not just good for trade rumors, apparently!—and she has most of her teammates and their general manager on speed dial, but she’s somehow the last one on the team to find out that Mike Lawson is coming back to the Padres.

The prodigal son is returning home.

To be the next pitching coach of the San Diego Padres. 

Ginny only finds out thanks to the news scrawl on the bottom of her TV screen as she’s flipping through the hundred or so ESPN channels, bored out of her mind, looking for something to hold her attention that isn’t a trashy celebrity-obsessed television tabloid. 

**SAN DIEGO’S FAVORITE SON RETURNS: HALL OF FAMER MIKE LAWSON HIRED BY TEAM—**

Ginny nearly falls off her couch in surprise.

Once she’s collected herself, she pulls out her phone and calls Blip.

“You’re never gonna believe—” Ginny blurts out as soon as she hears him answer the phone, but he cuts her off.

“I just saw,” he says. “Lawson’s back, huh?”

She can hear the boys hollering about something and Evelyn snapping authoritatively in the background. 

“Bad time?” Ginny asks, sheepishly, as she tucks her phone against her shoulder and cheek and grabs her laptop off the coffee table in front of her. 

“Nah, it’s fine,” Blip says, though he sounds a little harried and rushed. “The boys are just fighting over a—what the— _boys_!”

Evelyn pops up on the line then, sounding amused. “Gin, we’re gonna have to call you back. There’s a _situation_.”

Something crashes violently loudly in the background.

The three of them are chuckling as they end the call. She already feels a little better now.

Still laughing quietly to herself, Ginny opens her computer and brings up Facebook, clicking around on links until she gets to Mike’s page. 

Ginny chews on the inside of her cheek, her finger hovering over the trackpad. 

She’s tempted—so, so tempted— to send him a message. To reach out after over half a decade of infrequent phone calls and even more infrequent visits. 

Nothing had really happened between them after the almost-kiss on the sidewalk outside the bar. That fateful phone call from Oscar had changed everything, really. When the Cubs won it all a few months later, Ginny found herself longing for another curse. A billy goat or black cat to exact her vengeance. It was silly, of course. The Cubs hadn’t _made_ Mike take a few steps back from her—both literally _and_ figuratively—but she spent most of the rest of that season hurting emotionally and physically. 

It was difficult dealing with the injury that ended her season, mostly on her own. Noah hadn’t stuck around, through no fault of his own. It was just that they were both so busy and, really, ill-suited for each other. Noah had really been looking for a trophy girlfriend he could parade on his arm and brag about, and Ginny _so_ wasn’t that. 

Ginny was looking for… well, not Noah.

And, by the time Ginny had ended things with Noah, Mike had gotten back together with his ex-wife. 

Ginny distanced herself after that, at least on the emotional end of things. She scaled back the late-night phone conversations and texts. She all but stopped dragging him out to breakfast at whatever mom-and-pop diner they came across on their team’s roadtrips. 

Eventually, Ginny had gotten Mike to fit back into the box labeled ‘teammate.’ 

And then he retired. 

It’s been little over five years since she last shared a clubhouse with him, and she can’t help but wonder what else has changed in the interim. She knows from the occasional interview he deigns to give that the beard is peppered with gray and the hair is almost non-existent. He’s a little paunchier now, and there are more wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and mouth, too.

But will they still have the rapport they once had? 

Ginny’s not the naive rookie she once was. She’s not a lamb to be led. Ginny is the leader now, having carved out a foothold for herself on her own. 

She doesn’t have the fastest fastball—never did, really—and even her screwball’s lost a little as she’s gotten older, but what she lacks in pure _stuff_ she more than makes up for with smarts and guile. That uncanny gift of illusion, _magic_ that almost all crafty veteran pitchers possess. Instead of pulling rabbits out of hats and sawing ladies in half, Ginny paints the corners with her mediocre fastball—Jamie Moyer ain’t got nothing on her 80-miles-per-hour heater—and fluttering in screwballs when her opponents are looking for something else. It doesn’t always work, of course, but it works _enough_ that she more than gets by. 

Ginny’s grown up a lot since she last saw Mike Lawson.

She wonders if she’s outgrown _him_ , as well. 

*** 

Arizona in February doesn’t feel any different than it did the previous year. The earth doesn’t open up under Ginny when she climbs out of her truck and sets her feet on the asphalt. The mountains don’t crumble around her.

Mike Lawson has come back and everything’s changed—but at least _some_ things haven’t. 

Ginny lifts her sunglasses and surveys the Padres’ spring training complex, as if searching for tiny fissures, imperfections, and finding none. 

The return of Mike Lawson hardly merited much more than that news crawl at the bottom of the ESPN broadcast. The baseball world had simply shrugged at it and moved on. 

Ginny tucks the earpiece of her sunglasses into the collar of her tank top and strides toward the tan brick building in front of her.

She can hear the happy shouts of her teammates amid the sharp _thwocks_ of baseballs into catchers’ mitts and, almost instantly, Ginny’s fingers start tingling, itching for cowhide and stitches.

When she was younger, a rookie, she’d considered giving up the game. Turning her jersey in and going home. 

Baseball had been her dad’s dream, really. Actually, it’d been her dad’s dream for Will, before he realized Will had a nose for business rather than the batting cages. 

When she was younger, she used to think she’d gotten pushed into it. And maybe she had. If she’d taken any of the exit ramps her mom had offered her over the years before she’d just gotten worn down from trying, Ginny knows her dad would have been disappointed in her. He would’ve worn it like a logo over his chest, a scarlet letter for all to see. 

Ginny couldn’t bring herself to let down her dad when she was a girl and, as she realized during that tumultuous rookie year, she couldn’t bring herself to let down her dad when he was a ghost either. 

She’s grown up a little in the ensuing years, though. Sometimes she still hears her dad’s voice in her ear, perched on her shoulder as the angel—or devil, or both if need be—whispering to her, telling her what she should do. But she realized a long time ago that she’s the one calling the shots now. Daddy might have been disappointed with her—and maybe he’s up in Heaven shaking his head at her this very minute—but it’s gotten to the point that Ginny can live with it. 

So, sticking with baseball has always—and entirely—been Ginny’s choice. The only voice she’s listening to is her own. The only person Ginny trusts fully is herself. Advisers advise, coaches offer suggestions, her mom and step-dad send their support, but at the end of the day Ginny doesn’t take orders for anyone.

It’s going to make this new pitching coach situation interesting, to say the least. If Mike is as stubborn and as intent on getting his own way as Ginny remembers from her first couple of years, things might get contentious. 

Ginny walks into the building and takes the stairs—never the elevator—to the lower level, where the team’s clubhouse and workout facilities are located. 

She passes familiar faces on her trek to the clubhouse, lifting her hand and offering high-fives and shoulder-pats and back-slaps. 

Last year wasn’t good—not for anyone, really—but everyone Ginny comes across is smiling from ear to ear, still bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and optimistic about their chances this year. The Giants are primed to go on one of their odd-year downswings and the Diamondbacks and Rockies finally decided to blow it all up and tank for draft standing. 

If the Padres could ever pick a year to get out of their own way…

Ginny pushes open the clubhouse doors and is greeted with the pungent, sour stench of male sweat. She wrinkles her nose and twists her mouth. 

“Already?” Ginny mutters, shrugging the strap of her duffel bag off her shoulder and going over to drop it off in front of her locker. “It’s been one day and it already smells like feet in here.”

Corcino wheels his chair over to Ginny’s locker and offers her his fist. “Baker,” he says, in that lightly-accented lilt of his. 

Ginny acknowledges him with a bump of her knuckles against his fist, then nudges his rolling leather chair away from her locker. “Jesus, Corce. Did you marinate all winter?”

“Is my _machismo_ ,” Corcino says, grinning and winking at her before rolling back over to his locker.

Ginny rolls her eyes and pulls her curls back into a ponytail. “So _that’s_ what they call it.”

“Baker! Didn’t know you got in!”

Ginny whirls around to find herself face to face with Blip. “Sanders,” she says, throwing her arms around him in an exuberant hug. “Didn’t know you were coming in with the pitchers and catchers.”

Blip leans away from her and tugs up the sleeve of his windbreaker, proudly showing off the shiny, dark surgical scar curving on his left elbow like a smile. 

“Came early to get some physical therapy in,” Blip explains, pulling his sleeve back down. “Pretty much done with winter.”

“You and me both,” Ginny laughs, patting Blip on the chest and stepping away. “How’re Ev and the boys? Didn’t get much of a chance to talk with y’all as I would’ve liked.”

“Ev and the boys are great, but when aren’t they?” Blip asks, sounding proud. “Gabe made the soccer team and Marcus just won the lead in the school play. And Ev’s working on her dissertation. Life’s good. Life’s good.”

Ginny smiles and claps a hand on Blip’s shoulder, squeezing, though a part of her feels guilty she didn’t already know this. Blip, Evelyn, and the boys are practically family; how did she not know Gabe played soccer or Marcus liked to act? 

“I know what you’re thinking,” Blip starts, but Ginny waves him off.

“I’m definitely not beating myself up for not really keeping in contact over the winter,” Ginny says.

Blip raises his eyebrow at her. “That wasn’t what I was gonna say, but now that you mention it…” He pretends to rub his chin thoughtfully. “What’s up with that, Baker?”

Ginny sighs. She’d walked right into that one and she had only herself to blame. “I guess I’ve been…” Ginny pauses, trying to feel out the right words. Or, at least, the words that would make it less likely for Blip to get on her ass. “You know Lawson’s the new pitching coach, right?”

Blip shrugs at her. “Of course. Who doesn’t?”

Ginny chews on the inside of her cheek. “And you know there was…” 

She pauses. She’s never actually told Blip about the almost-but-not-quite kiss she shared—but not exactly—with Mike. 

She’s never actually told Blip that she capital-L _Liked_ Mike. That she grew up with his poster on her wall and, after everything that went down her rookie season, that she took the poster down because it was too hard to have that reminder staring right into her soul every time she went home to visit her mom and step-dad. That she cried for hours after finding out Mike was back with his ex, Rachel, thanks to a Google alert and a trashy tabloid headline. 

Nope. The only other person who knows about any of this is her dad, and he definitely wouldn’t have told anyone. 

“There was what?” Blip prompts.

“I can’t talk to you about it in here,” Ginny hisses, tightening her grip on his arm. “Let’s go grab a Coke or something.”

Ginny loops her arm through Blip’s and drags him out of the clubhouse and down the hall. 

“I dunno what this’s about,” Blip says, “but it better be good.”

“Mike—I mean, Lawson and I. We kissed,” Ginny whispers. “Rookie year.”

Blip stops so abruptly that Ginny gets yanked back into him. “You _what_?”

“Don’t give me the judgmental eyebrows,” Ginny snaps, putting her hands on her hips. 

“I’m gonna need you to back up and start from the beginning,” Blip says.

Ginny sighs and tugs on the end of her ponytail. “It’s a long story,” she mumbles.

“I got time.” Blip gives Ginny one of his no-nonsense, you-ain’t-getting-outta-this-one looks that Gabe and Marcus probably see a lot.

Ginny bristles at the realization Blip is _dad_ -ing her. “Seriously, Blip? You’re gonna whip out your judgmental _dad_ face on me?”

Blip grins at her. “Absolutely. So, get to talking.”

***

Ginny spills out everything to Blip over a Styrofoam cup of foul coffee Ginny swears she can feel scalding her throat on the way down. 

Blip takes it well, honestly. She’d been expecting more Judgy McJudgerson from him, but when she’s finished with her story he just leans back against the wall and makes a thoughtful _hmm_ ing noise. 

“So?” Ginny prompts, draining the dregs of her coffee.

“How did both of you manage to keep this a secret? How did _Evelyn_ manage to keep this a secret?” Blip asks. “I assume you told her. Right?”

“She just knew about the crush-y thing. I never told anyone we almost kissed,” Ginny says. 

Blip scrubs his hands over his face. “And now you’re, what? Worried that it’ll come back to haunt you? Or do you _want_ it to come back and haunt you?”

“Hell no, Blip. Do you realize how unethical that’d be?” Ginny asks. “Teammates hooking up is bad enough, but a player and a coach?”

Blip makes a thoughtful face, twisting his lips. “You have a point.” He narrows his eyes at her. “So what’re you gonna do about it?”

“Ignore it. What else?” Ginny asks.

Blip frowns. “ ’Cause ignoring the elephant in the room always works out just great,” he says.

Ginny thumps her head gently back against the wall and stares up at the ceiling. “I don’t know what else I _can_ do, Blip. I thought I was over all this but the moment I found out he was coming back to coach…”

Blip sighs. “I dunno what to tell ya, Baker,” he says. “What’s the CBA say about this kinda thing?”

“The collective bargaining agreement?” Ginny frowns. She doesn’t know if she should reveal to Blip she already looked it up and the CBA doesn’t have any section about the ethics of players dating their coaches. “I dunno.”

“You know he got back with Rachel, right? You might not have to anything to worry about,” Blip says. “If he’s with Rachel…”

Ginny had—for a moment, wrapped up as she was in her own melodrama—forgotten about Rachel, and the very public rekindling of hers and Mike’s relationship. 

She remembers the television tabloids and magazines having a field day with the relationship, following Mike and Rachel around on their second honeymoon in Cabo. Because who doesn’t like a good comeback story? 

Ginny realizes she has no idea if Mike is still with Rachel. If he is, maybe this is all moot. Maybe Ginny really doesn’t have anything to worry about after all.

Ginny’s about to mention this to Blip but he holds up a finger to shush her and pulls out his phone.

“What’re you doing?” Ginny asks.

Blip taps at his screen and lifts the phone to his ear. After a moment, he puts on a bright, cheery voice and exclaims, “Hey, Ev! Can you look something up for me? Mmhm. Gonna need you to hit up Google and see if Mike’s still with Rachel.”

Ginny rolls her eyes and turns on her heel, heading back toward the clubhouse.

Throwing the doors open, Ginny finds herself face to face with Mike Lawson. 

“Hey, Baker! Long time, no see!” Mike grins at her and opens his arms, like he’s expecting her to rush into them and give him a welcome-back hug.

(It doesn’t matter that she _wants_ to give him a welcome-back hug. It’s the principle of the matter.)

“Old man,” Ginny greets him. She indulges the silent request for a hug because she’s feeling generous, nothing more and nothing less. 

Mike’s arms go around her, squeezing her tight, before letting her go. 

“You ready to have me in your ear twenty-four-seven?” he asks, still grinning, his eyes crinkling in the corners.

He’s a little paunchier than she remembers, his gut hanging over his belt, and his beard has more salt than pepper in it, but he’s still _Mike_. 

It’s been years since she last saw him, years since they last talked really, but he’s still her catcher. 

He’s still her _old man_ and she’s still his _rookie_. 

Everything’s changed— _they’ve_ changed—and yet it’s like nothing’s changed at all. Ginny’s the veteran now, but she still feels like the young and inexperienced rookie meeting her idol—her childhood crush—for the first time.

(She remembers how that first meeting went, what with all the butt slapping and posturing, and her cheeks flush with heat.)

Ginny flicks her eyes down at his left hand where it rests against his thigh and she notes the distinct lack of a wedding ring. She wonders if that means he and Rachel called it quits again.

And then she promptly reminds herself that it’s none of her business. 

“So…” Ginny trails off, pulling her eyes away from his hand. 

Mike beams at her. “God, Baker. It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”

Ginny laughs. “Yeah, just a little bit.”

“You still, uh…” Mike waves a hand in the air as he hems and haws. “You still dating that basketball player? André?”

“Nah,” Ginny says, quickly shaking her head. “Dré and I split up a couple years ago.”

She wants to ask him about Rachel—knows he’s waiting for her to ask—but she can’t bring herself to. 

The silence hangs between them, heavy with all the questions neither of them will allow themselves to give voice to.

If you give it a voice, that means it’s out there. That means it’s real. 

And what if Mike still _is_ with Rachel? What then? 

Mike coughs sharply, sending Ginny’s thoughts scattering like leaves.

“How ’bout we get a bullpen session in,” he says, putting his hands on his hips. “I wanna see what I got to work with.”

Ginny laughs and rolls her eyes, tucking her arms across her chest. “I got a cutter now,” she says. “Livan helped me with that one.”

“Livan. Where’s he at now?” Mike asks.

“Miami,” Ginny says. Livan had gotten traded a couple seasons ago as a casualty of the Padres’ latest rebuilding efforts. “He says he likes it there. Says Jeter’s dreamy.”

Mike laughs and moves closer, slinging his arm around Ginny’s shoulders. The two of them head back outside, Mike with his arm casually slung over Ginny’s shoulders and Ginny tucked comfortably into his side. 

Ginny gamely ignores the butterflies that are suddenly ravaging her stomach. She’s almost thirty, she’s too _old_ for this stupid crush on Mike Lawson.

Isn’t she?

*** 

It’s so easy to just slip back into her old routine with Mike, that she almost forgets he’s not her catcher anymore. She slips up a couple times during her bullpen sessions. She looks to Mike where he leans against the chain-link fence, rather than at her catcher a few too many times before Devon pulls off his mask and asks—in a slightly biting tone—if Ginny would rather Mike suit up and catch her. 

Ginny feels her cheeks warm and, for a split second, she resents Devon for calling her out. The back of her neck prickles with heat and it takes everything in her not to look over to Mike after Devon pulls his mask down and gets back into his crouch sixty feet, sixes inches away. 

Then her embarrassment fades and she gets back onto the mound, toes the rubber and fishes the ball out of her mitt. 

Devon’s been her personal catcher since Livan left, a couple years ago. They’d gone through a lot of growing pains to get to the point where Ginny felt confident he could handle her pitches. He probably felt like his position was being usurped, and by a living legend no less. 

“Sorry,” Ginny calls out. She reaches into her glove and closes her hand around the ball, her fingers searching for the stitches, anchoring herself to them. “Let’s do that again.”

Placated, Devon nods at her and flaps his glove open. His fingers flash the sign for the fastball and Ginny gives him what he wants, placing it perfectly in his glove like God himself had delivered the pitch into Devon’s waiting mitt.

When they’re done, Mike trots over to Ginny as she’s leaving the bullpen with Devon and the other pitchers and catchers. 

“You always give your catchers a hard time?” he asks, sounding amused. 

“Gotta keep ’em on their toes,” Ginny says, nudging Mike playfully in the shoulder.

“So, how you been?” Mike asks, nudging her back.

“‘How you been?’” Ginny echoes, arching her eyebrows at Mike. “We’ve barely spoken in five years and that’s your icebreaker?”

Mike rolls his eyes at her. “C’mon, Baker. Throw me a bone.”

Ginny shakes her head, but she relents. For now. 

“It’s my walk year this year,” she says, as they exit the bullpen and make their way back to the training complex together. She drapes her jacket over her arm and reaches back to fuss with her ponytail as they walk. “Haven’t really gotten any indication from the Pads they wanna extend me, so…”

Mike grunts and shoves his hands in his pockets. “That’s a lotta pressure,” he concludes. He glances over at her and chews on the inside of his cheek for a moment. “Don’t let it eat you up, Baker.”

“’Don’t let it eat you up,’” Ginny mutters. “Great bit of advice there.”

“You’ve been doing this your whole life,” Mike points out. “Why should it be any different now?”

“Never had so much riding on my right arm before, though,” Ginny says.

“Baseball’s still baseball,” Mike says. 

“You saying you didn’t feel the pressure playing for your first big contract?” she asks.

“Of course I did,” Mike says. “I hit thirty homers, slugged six-fifty, and threw out thirty percent. But I still woke up in cold sweats every night, wondering what might happen if I blew my knee out or tore up my shoulder before I could sign on the dotted line.” 

“That’s morbid,” Ginny says.

“You just gotta find a way to manage it,” Mike says.

“Easy for you to say,” she mutters.

*** 

Ginny’s tossing a weighted medicine ball against a wall in the trainer’s office a few days later when Mike limps in. Ginny glances down and notes the outline of the bulky knee braces under his track pants.

“Still bothering you?” she asks, scooping up the medicine ball and resting it on her hip. 

Ginny recalls that Mike had had surgery on both knees after he retired. Apparently it hadn’t done all that much to alleviate the pain.

“I’ll be fine,” he says dismissively, waving a hand at her. He jumps up onto one of the trainer’s tables and tugs up his pant legs, unfastening the braces and slipping them off.

The pink scars on Mike’s knees are thick and shiny, running down both his kneecaps, the skin around them puckered.

“Is there anything they can do for you?” she asks. 

“More surgery, I guess,” Mike sighs. “I’ve just been putting it off.”

“You should probably look into that,” Ginny tells him, rolling her eyes. “Might help with the pain.”

Mike nudges her in the shoulder. “What about you and the scar tissue in your elbow?”

“Low blow,” Ginny says, shoving him back gently.

Mike smirks at her. “I guess we’re even now. Got any more aches and pains you wanna compare?”

Ginny rolls her eyes. “I got a pain in my ass right now,” she says, pointedly.

“That sounds inappropriate.” Mike bats her hand away from his chest.

“You wish,” Ginny quips back, then pauses because… well. 

There’s still some unfinished business between them, and it’s not all on Mike’s end. Ginny had wanted it as much as he did, the timing had just been all wrong.

The timing’s still not right though, is it? Not with Ginny on the pitching staff and Mike her coach. If anything, getting together now would be even shadier than before. 

Ginny had stuck to her rule about not dating teammates—maybe rigidly so—and she wasn’t going to make an exception for a coach. No matter how badly she wanted to.

“Oh?” Mike asks, sounding way too curious.

“No. Nuh-uh,” Ginny says, holding up a finger. “We’re not going there.”

“You brought it up,” he points out. 

“I know. But time for a new discussion topic,” she says, pantomiming tossing the previous discussion topic in the trash can by the door. 

“Gin,” he starts.

“I can’t, Mike,” Ginny cuts him off, crossing her arms over her chest. “I have way too much to lose now. It’s my walk year, we got a real chance at the postseason. I just…”

Ginny falters and Mike patiently waits her out, his hands resting on his hips, before he finally breaks the silence that’s fallen over them like a heavy blanket.

“You just _what_ , Gin?” Mike asks. “There was something there. We both felt it.”

“I know,” she admits, looking down at the carpet. She picks her heel at the black and gray geometric shapes underfoot. “But you’re my coach now.”

“Aren’t you curious, though?” Mike asks, then pauses for a moment before dragging his hand through his salt-and-pepper beard. “I still think about it sometimes. About what might’ve happened if we’d…”

“And now we can’t,” Ginny says, gentling her tone.

“Why not?” Mike asks.

“Did you miss the whole thing where you’re my pitching coach and I’m in the final year of my contract? I’ve got millions riding on this season, Mike,” she says, moving closer so that she can put her hand on his arm. “I can’t fuck this up.”

“And you think I’ll fuck it up for you?” Mike asks, his gaze dropping momentarily to her lips before bouncing back up to look her in the eye. “You know I wouldn’t do that.”

Ginny shakes her head. “It’s not that,” she says. “I’ve got too much to lose. If we started something and got caught it could be real bad for me.”

And Mike would likely slip by, unscathed. The blame would fall on Ginny simply because she’s a woman and, while men can’t help themselves around attractive women, Ginny should _know_ better. She’s been in the league long enough that she’s gotten the lectures from agents and handlers and team P.R. on how to deal with relationships. As far as she knows, none of her male teammates have ever had to have that talk.

“I can handle the heat,” Mike says. “I wouldn’t let you just take it all on yourself.”

“It wouldn’t be up to you, Mike,” Ginny says, offering Mike a grim smile. 

Mike lets out his breath in a whistle, like a teakettle boiling over. “We both want this. Don’t we?” he says.

“Yeah,” Ginny admits. “But—”

“I know,” Mike says, sighing again. “So where does that leave us?”

Ginny reaches down and takes his hand in hers, squeezing gently. “I… I don’t know,” she admits. 

Mike turns her hand over, palm up, and traces his fingertip over her love line. “I guess we’ll never know.”

“I guess not.”

Ginny is going to let go of Mike’s hand and finish her workout, but something keeps her rooted in that spot. Something keeps her from letting go. 

Ginny leans in and presses a soft kiss against the corner of Mike’s mouth—their first real kiss, ironically enough—before she gently twists her hand out of his. 

She grabs her medicine ball and starts thumping it against the wall again, the steel girders of her mind slamming down. She’s not Ginny anymore, the girl with lingering, unresolved feelings toward her ex-catcher. She’s _Baker_ , number forty-three, starting pitcher and pending free agent.

She doesn’t notice Mike has left until she hears the soft hiss-click of the door shutting behind him.

*** 

Laying down boundaries doesn’t stop the rumors from starting, but Ginny hadn’t expected anything less really. Some of the trashier sports tabloids pump out shoddy, reality-challenged articles—if you could even call them that—about her supposed torrid love affair with Mike. A few of the more reputable rags even pick up the story, rehashing old, tired rumors. Like the one where Ginny put the kibosh on the trade to Chicago because she couldn’t bear to be parted from her lover—Ginny rolls her eyes as she skims that one—and the rumor that she forced Mike into retirement so he could plan a destination wedding in the Bahamas. 

Ginny dumps a stack of magazines on the poker table in the middle of the clubhouse, earning curious looks from some of her teammates.

“What’re those?” Devon asks, lowering his phone and scrutinizing the pile of magazines with a skeptical glare.

“My life story,” Ginny says, caustically. She picks up an issue of _Us Weekly_. “This one says I’m pregnant. And this one—” Ginny brandishes it at Devon like a weapon “—says I have a secret love child with our pitching coach.”

“Do you?” Devon asks.

Ginny lowers the copy of _Us Weekly_ and narrows her eyes at Devon. “What do _you_ think?”

Devon gives her a quick once-over. “You look pretty good for having had a secret love child.”

Ginny groans and tosses the magazine at his head. “I hate you.”

Devon flips through it and opens it to the article on Ginny and Mike. “‘Ginny Baker reunited with the father of her baby,’” Devon announces in an overly grandiose tone.

“Devon, I swear to God.” Ginny lunges at him and grabs for the magazine. 

Devon doesn’t reply, he just starts cackling. 

Ginny leaves Devon and Corcino with the magazines and heads back to her locker, quickly stripping out of her workout clothes and wrapping herself in a towel.

After her first couple years in the league, Ginny moved her stuff to a locker stashed into the corner of the clubhouse. No one batted an eye at her nudity anymore, not that she was ever really _nude_ in the clubhouse, honestly. 

It just serves to remind her how much has changed since she joined the league.

After a quick shower, Ginny gets dressed in her uniform and returns to her locker for her hat and glove. 

Ginny finds Devon by his locker and the two of them head out to the field together. It’s her bullpen day, so she and Devon will get some long-tossing in before their spring training game. 

Mike’s already in the bullpen area, a clipboard in one hand and a stopwatch in the other. They acknowledge one another with a nod while Ginny shrugs off her jacket and picks a resistance band out of a crate of workout gear.

After Ginny finishes warming up her arm, she grabs a baseball and waits for Devon. She starts out with some light tossing, very aware of Mike’s eyes on her back as she lets the ball go. 

She can’t deny that it’s kind of weirding her out. Sure, it was awkward pitching to Mike after their almost-kiss but somehow that felt _normal_. Ginny was able to put her brain on autopilot and just cruise. 

Even with Mike at her back, she still feels… exposed. Like he can see the knotty tangle of her thoughts racing through her brain.

Devon gets out of his crouch and tips his mask up off his face.

“What?” Ginny asks, throwing her arms up at him.

“You’re distracted,” he says. 

“I’m not, I’m fine,” Ginny says. “Get back behind the dish.”

Devon makes a skeptical noise. “I know you well enough to know that’s bullshit.”

Ginny huffs an unhappy sigh. “Devon…”

“C’mon, Baker,” Mike intervenes.

Ginny turns and glares at him. “Was I asking you?”

Mike gives her an unamused look. “Baker, don’t make me come over there,” he grumbles.

Ginny grits her teeth and digs her nails into her palms. She knows Devon is right, her head isn’t in the game, but it’s not like she can just _focus_ with Mike right there. When he narrows his eyes at her it’s almost like he can penetrate her mind and read the thoughts she’s trying so desperately to conceal. 

Ginny wants to fight Devon on it but, like Mike, he knows her better than he knows himself. So Ginny gives him a curt nod and steps back onto the pitching rubber. 

Devon tosses the ball to her and she runs her fingers over the seams, fitting her nails against the stitches. 

Devon flaps open his glove and Ginny gives a nod. She pulls the ball out of her mitt and draws into her arm back, her body coiling like a snake ready to strike. 

Ginny lets the ball go and it floats into Devon’s waiting glove.

Ginny turns, pretending she doesn’t notice the approving nod Mike gives her. Nor the warm feeling that courses through her bloodstream. 

*** 

“Gin, get the bowls out of the cupboard over the sink.” Evelyn points a wooden spoon at Ginny, directing her to the cupboard in question. 

Ginny gets the bowls and carries them out to the dining room, where placemats have been set out. Ginny counts out six mats as she puts the bowls down, and she frowns, turning back toward the kitchen.

Evelyn is ladeling pasta sauce into a big bowl.

“Ev,” Ginny calls out to her. “Who’s the extra place at the table for?”

Evelyn turns and gives Ginny a sly look, a smile twitching up the corners of her mouth. “An old friend,” is the cryptic reply.

“Don’t tell me you invited Mike,” Ginny says, setting the bowl down with a thump. “Evelyn—”

Evelyn scurries out of the kitchen, wielding a cheese grater and a hunk of parmesan. “Ginny, please don’t be mad at me. But we thought it’d be fun to catch up and—”

“ _We_? Don’t you be dragging my good name through the mud on this one,” Blip calls out as he comes into the kitchen. He glances from Ginny to Evelyn and back again. “What’s going on, Baker?”

“If you’re trying to push me and Mike together, it’s not gonna work,” Ginny says. 

“Why would you think that? We’re all friends,” Evelyn points out. “We… I mean, _I_ thought it’d be fun! When’s the last time we were all together at the same time? I swear there was no ulterior motive this time.”

“ _This_ time,” Ginny echoes, arching an eyebrow at Evelyn. 

“Hedging my bets,” Evelyn says.

Ginny feels her annoyance slipping away, unable to keep a smile off her face. “I swear to God, Ev. If you try and push me and Mike at each other I’m gonna throttle you.” 

“No pushing, promise,” Evelyn says, crossing her heart with the hunk of cheese.

Mike shows up a little while later, bearing a bottle of expensive French wine and a bouquet of flowers for Evelyn. 

Ginny has to admit that he looks good. He’s combed his hair and even tamed the beard a little bit, and he’s actually wearing _khakis_.

She wonders who he’s trying to impress, Blip and Evelyn or Ginny herself.

“Hey, coach,” Ginny says, giving him a nod.

“Baker,” Mike says.

Evelyn snatches the flowers from Mike. She waves a hand in front of his eyes. “Hey, hey, not in my house. Baseball player off. Normal human on.”

Mike rolls his eyes. “Yes ma’am.”

“You keep that up, she’s gonna get a big head,” Blip cracks, coming over and slapping high fives with Mike. 

“I heard that,” Evelyn calls out from the kitchen, where she’s snipping the stems and placing the flowers in a vase. “ _You_ keep that up, you’re gonna be sleeping on the couch.”

Laughing, Mike and Blip head into the kitchen to pour some wine. Ginny elects to get Marcus and Gabe seated at the table.

“You okay, Ginny?” Gabe asks. “You look… weird.”

“Oh, I’m _Ginny_ now?” she quips, choosing to ignore the fact that even an eleven-year-old—albeit a perceptive one—notices something’s off with her too. “I thought I was _Aunt_ Ginny.”

“Don’t mind them,” Evelyn says, coming in and putting a pot of pasta in the center of the table. “They’re going through a phase.”

“What’s a phase, Evelyn?” asks Marcus.

Evelyn looks over at Ginny and arches her eyebrows to emphasize her point.

Ginny laughs and takes a seat next to Marcus, pulling a napkin into her lap. 

Mike, predictably, finds the empty seat on her other side. 

“So, what _is_ up with you?” Mike asks, as he fiddles with the stem of his wineglass.

Ginny glances over at him, frowning. “What? Nothing’s _up_ with me. Why does everyone think something’s _up_? Did you ever stop to consider something might be _down_?”

Mike rolls his eyes. “You’re deflecting.”

“Mike, what’s _deflecting_ mean,” Gabe asks. 

“Kids, mind your own beeswax,” Blip says, joining Ginny, Mike, and the boys at the table. 

“We’ll talk about it later,” Ginny mutters under her breath to Mike, as she smooths down her napkin.

Blip looks over at Ginny, curious, but thankfully he doesn’t press the issue. 

Once everyone’s seated, Evelyn leads them in a pre-meal blessing, and then they dig in. 

A couple years ago, Evelyn took some cooking classes to stave off what she called the stagnation of her mind. Tonight’s meal is the fruit of her labors. Evelyn dishes out pasta while Blip ladles out sauce and passes out a bowl of grated parmesan cheese.

“Looks great, Ev,” Ginny says. 

“You can never go wrong with pasta,” Evelyn demurs, but she basks proudly in the praise.

The rest of dinner goes relatively smoothly, and Ginny does her best to ignore the pull between her and Mike. She’s not sure she can call it tension, though, because tension implies that there’s a push-pull. That it’s mutual.

It _isn’t_. It can’t be.

Ginny’s in the kitchen soaking some of the dishes when Mike saunters into the kitchen behind her, a wineglass dangling from his fingers.

She keeps right on ignoring him and scrubs at an immaculately clean dish with a soapy Brillo pad.

“I think that dish is clean,” Mike comments, setting the glass in the sink.

But he doesn’t move away from Ginny. She can feel his warmth behind her, seeping past her outer layers, into her skin.

Or maybe that’s the wine she drank earlier, or her overactive imagination.

Maybe it’s her loneliness. She hasn’t really been with anybody—at least in a relationship—since she and Dré split up a couple years ago. Dré had been fun, but their competing schedules had sapped most of the romance out after a time.

Ginny wipes a sudsy hand across her forehead and makes a face. Mike holds out a piece a paper towel to her, but she ignores it to brush some damp strands of hair off her face. 

“You’re gonna have to deal with me,” Mike says. “You know, seeing as I’m your pitching coach and all.”

Ginny grabs a sponge and viciously attacks Mike’s glass. “Not if I can help it.”

“Why’re you so determined to shut me out?” he asks, sounding genuinely curious. “Things didn’t end that badly between us, did they?”

Ginny drops the sponge and sets the glass down on the counter. She turns and looks at Mike. “No,” she says, with a weary sigh. “We didn’t do anything I didn’t wanna do. It’s just…”

Her voice drops off and Mike waits, regarding her with a curious look Ginny doesn’t think she likes. It feels too much like she’s an opposing batter he wants to unravel. Like he’s searching for weaknesses and blind spots to expose.

“I wanted to take it farther but I had my rules,” she says.

“As bogus as the neighborhood play,” Mike quips, a teasing lilt to his words.

“The neighborhood play is subject to review,” Ginny announces, grabbing the paper towel out of Mike’s hands and wiping hers off. 

“So, what are you saying?” he prods. 

“I’m not gonna do anything with you,” Ginny says, balling the paper towel in her hand. Mike’s face falls before snapping back into place, his _Mike Fucking Lawson, First Ballot Hall of Famer_ mask settling back into place. “Wait a minute now.”

Ginny sets the crumpled paper towel aside and reaches out, taking Mike’s hands in hers.

“Okay?” He sounds confused.

“My feelings for you never changed,” Ginny says, with a sigh. 

“Neither did mine,” he admits. 

“I’m still not gonna do anything with you though,” she continues, powering past Mike’s slightly confused, slightly irritated expression. “Not while we’re teammates.”

“Technically, we’re not,” he says.

“It’d be even worse with you as my pitching coach,” she says. “If we started a relationship, we’d have to sneak around, keep it secret. All the things I didn’t wanna do back then.”

“So what do we do now?” Mike rubs his thumb across her knuckles. 

“Will you wait for me?” Ginny asks, looking up at him, searching his face for something. An answer to her question, maybe.

“What do you mean? Until when?” Mike asks.

“Until I hit free agency,” Ginny says, squeezing his hands.

“So you’ve made up your mind, then? You’re not staying?” Mike asks.

“I can’t. Not if we’re gonna do this,” she says.

Realization dawns in Mike’s eyes and his shoulders sag.

“You’d leave just so we can do this?” 

Ginny nods. “Only if you’re willing to wait, though. If you don’t wanna…”

Mike sighs, as a hundred different emotions war behind his dark eyes. “Do you _want_ to say in San Diego?”

“I love it here,” Ginny admits. “But the front office is about to launch their third rebuild in the last five years. They might not even wanna bring me back. The writing’s on the wall, Mike.”

“If we’re gonna do this, you gotta be sure,” Mike says, leaning in and inclining his head, just a bit, so he can brush his lips across her forehead. “You gotta be one-hundred percent sure you’re ready to leave.”

Ginny loves San Diego. She loves the city, the ballpark, the fans. She loves her team, even if it’s not the same team she came up with. 

But... Ginny loves Mike too. Loves Mike the most. She’s waited six years for this moment, she can’t let it slip by. 

Ginny nods slowly and looks up into Mike’s eyes.

“I’m ready,” she says.

Mike squeezes her hands again. “Then so am I. I’ll wait.” He pauses, bringing her hands up to kiss her knuckles. “You know I’d wait however long you asked me to.”

Ginny laughs and stands up on her toes to kiss his forehead, still clasping tightly onto his hands. “I know.”

They break apart when they hear footsteps on the stairs. Ginny grabs a squeezy bottle of dish soap and Mike picks up a stack of dirty dishes. 

“Forget the new dish washer,” Evelyn says, glancing over her shoulder at Blip. “I think I’ll just hire you two.”

Ginny laughs and dips her hands into the soapy water. Her fingers brush against Mike’s and he hooks their pinkies together, squeezing tight. 

Ginny squeezes back.

It’s February. The season ends in September. 

Six months. They can wait six months, easy.

Can’t they?

*** 

Ginny’s first course of action is to lay down boundaries, ground rules. 

No private meetings away from the ballpark.

No playing favorites. 

No jealousy. 

It seems simple enough. And Ginny’s always been good at following the rules, regardless of whether or not they’ve been laid down by her dad or Major League Baseball or Ginny herself. 

There’s never been anything in the rulebook about dating teammates or coaches, but following her own code of ethics has always just made Ginny feel better. There are a lot of other things she could be dinged for—both rightly and wrongly—so she’s always tried to remain above reproach.  
Her friends, the ones not involved in baseball, think she’s boring, or doesn’t know how to have fun but that’s far from the truth.

Ginny just takes the game very seriously. 

“So,” Mike says, from where he’s lounging on his hotel bed. “No fraternization.”

“Fraternization?” Ginny looks up from her phone and frowns at him.

“Schmoozing,” Mike clarifies, but it doesn’t really do anything to help.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Ginny puts her phone aside and stretches her arms overhead. 

Mike rolls his eyes and holds up the piece of paper she’d given him, with their ground rules printed out. “‘No private meetings away from the ballpark,’” he says. “Don’t you think that’s a little excessive?”

“Better safe than sorry,” Ginny says. 

“So, we can’t, like, go out for dinner together? Or hang out after a game?” Mike asks.

“That’s kind of the point of the rule,” Ginny says.

“Isn’t what we’re doing right now against your rules?” he asks.

Ginny sighs. “Mike…”

“Just sayin’,” Mike says, shrugging his shoulders at her.

Ginny gets out of her chair and goes over to his bed, sitting on the end. She holds her hand out and waggles her fingers at him. “Give it to me.”

Mike hands the piece of paper over. “Gonna revise the rulebook?”

Ginny ignores him, pulling a pen out of her pocket. 

Mike reaches over and snatches the paper out of her hand, digging a pen out of his pocket. “I’ve got an addition for the list.”

Ginny watches as Mike scribbles on the piece of hotel stationery before handing it back to her.

“‘Rules are made to be broken’?” Ginny raises her eyebrows at him. 

“I mean… You can’t litigate a relationship, Gin,” he says, scrubbing a hand through his beard. “Anyway, you already broke rule number one.”

“What? What are you talking about?” Ginny asks.

“Correct me if I’m wrong but we’re having a private meeting,” Mike says, walking his fingertips up the back of her wrist, teasingly. “Away from the ballpark.”

“I hate you.” Ginny flicks the pen at his forehead but Mike just starts laughing at her. “No, I’m serious.”

Mike grabs Ginny around the waist and wrestles her down next to him. Ginny starts laughing too, reaching up to knot her hands in the front of Mike’s shirt.

“So, you already broken rule number one. What’s the next one on your list?” Mike asks, grinning down at her.

Ginny gropes for the paper, which she can feel under her, and digs it out. “‘No playing favorites.’”

“What’s that even mean?” Mike asks, dipping down to run his lips lightly over hers in something that’s not quite a kiss.

“Just, like… No giving me preferential treatment just ’cause you like me the best,” she says, not-kissing him back.

“Who says I like you the best,” Mike asks, chuckling. “Castilleja doesn’t backtalk nearly as much as you do.”

“I think it’s because he’s afraid of you,” Ginny says, slipping her arms around Mike’s neck.

Mike pecks Ginny on the lips. “Okay. So, we’ve already broken rule number one. What was number two again?”

“No playing favorites, which I think we broke just now,” Ginny laughs. “Leaving only ‘no jealousy.’”

“That one should be easy.” Mike rolls off of her and onto his back, resting a hand over his chest. “We can totally do this, Baker. We _got_ this.”

He holds his pinky out to Ginny and she reaches out, locking hers with his. Squeezing their fingers together, shaking on it. 

“We got this,” Ginny echoes.

*** 

The hardest part, Ginny thinks, is the anticipation. The waiting. 

It turns out that waiting is way harder than Ginny thought it would be. 

Mike might not be a player anymore, but that doesn’t mean the groupies are no longer interested in him. If anything, they’re even more determined to ‘score’ with him, to put his plaque up on _their_ wall.

Mike politely turns them down, and Ginny knows she shouldn’t be jealous—it’s in the _rules_!—but she can’t help it.

It’s just six months. What is it to wait sixth more months, after going without for almost six _years_?

Ginny might be a touch impatient, but whatever. She’ll live.

It might not _feel_ like it, but she’ll live.

*** 

All anybody wants to talk about coming out of spring training is Ginny’s pending free agent status. 

Anonymous _sources_ float rumors she’d like to sign in Atlanta because Georgia isn’t that far from North Carolina. Never mind that Ginny doesn’t have any attachment to the Braves, nor does she really care to be that close to her mom and step-dad. She loves them—God, she loves them—but being _that_ close to them? Just a six-hour drive away? Nah, Ginny needs her distance. So, Georgia is out of the question. 

Those so-called sources also whisper that Ginny might follow Livan to Miami. There were _rumors_ about her and Livan, because of how close they got before he got swept out in the last round of rebuilding. 

Sure, she and Livan were practically living out of each other’s back pocket by the time Oscar shipped him off for spare parts, but it was more a sibling bond with Livan than anything else. Still, a man and a woman can’t get close to one another without someone seeing something that isn’t there. 

Ginny would never go to Miami anyway. Playing for Jeter isn’t as much of a draw as the Marlins would like it to be. And, besides, they got rid of the homerun sculpture. Ginny liked the homerun sculpture.

Anyway, Ginny tries not to pay too much attention to the rumors (half of which her own agent is probably floating to make the contenders nervous). She’s also not entirely sure it couldn’t be considered tampering, so better safe than sorry.

Ginny drowns out the background noise, like she’s become adept at over the years, and whittles her focus down to a single, sharp point.

She’s going to drag the Padres to the postseason in her final year, if it kills her. And it very well might kill her because, as far as she knows, the front office doesn’t have high hopes for the upcoming season.

It’d be the perfect way to go out, though. She’s never been to the postseason; what better way to tip her cap to the Padres and the fans than to go out on the highest of highs?

Ginny tells Mike this—that she’s going to win them a World Series in her final year—and he laughs in her face.

“Stop laughing at me,” she snaps, stabbing a plastic fork into a pile of kale. 

“I’m not laughing _at_ you,” Mike says, but he’s definitely laughing at her.

“I’m serious, Mike. I’m gonna do this for the fans, then I’m out,” she says.

“And what if you don’t, though?” Mike looks at her over a bacon cheeseburger practically oozing high cholesterol. “You gonna stick around?”

Ginny shrugs, pushing her kale around with her fork. “I dunno. Maybe. I’d have unfinished business. Can’t leave with unfinished business.”

“You think you might be pinning all your hopes on a World Series ’cause you’re not sure you wanna leave?” he asks.

“Jesus, Mike. That was cold-blooded,” she snipes. 

“But not entirely inaccurate?” Mike asks, sinking into his burger with aplomb.

Ginny pushes her salad bowl away with a sigh. “I guess not. But…”

“But what?” Mike asks. 

“If I stay, we can’t be together. If I leave, we _can_ but the whole ‘unfinished business’ thing,” Ginny says, reaching out and resting her hand on the tabletop.

Mike slides his hand over Ginny’s. “We gotta take it one day at a—”

Ginny jerks her hand away and glares at him. “I hate you.”

Mike grins at her. “You’re a big fat liar. You like me. A lot.”

Ginny can’t argue that, really. “I do like you. Way more than a lot. But I dunno what I’m gonna do.”

“Seriously, though. You gotta take it one day at a time,” he says, slipping his hand over hers again. “You can’t be thinking ahead.”

“But that’s what I do,” Ginny protests. “I’m a worrier, Mike. I worry.”

Mike rubs his thumb across her knuckles slowly. “That’s why you got me.”

Ginny tilts her head at him across the table and smiles. “I got you, huh?”

“Yep. Good luck getting rid of me.” Mike squeezes her hand before pulling back as a waitress approaches their table with the bill. “Don’t worry, Baker. Everything’ll be all right.”

*** 

The Padres stumble out of the gates, dropping three straight three-game series on the road to the Dodgers, Rockies, and Giants to open things up. They manage to scratch and claw their way to their only win on the roadtrip when the Giants’ rookie center fielder plays cement-footed Devon’s tenth inning single into a triple and then Blip scores him on a sac fly. The less said about that roadtrip, the better. 

Ginny has her finger on the pulse of the team, though. And there are rumblings of another midseason sell-off.

Maybe the Padres would be kind and sell Ginny before she even has to start thinking about whether or not to stick around.

But Ginny didn’t get to where she’s gotten without contingency plans, so she makes another list. 

She shows it to Mike, who simply plucks the page from her and pulls out a red pen. He scribbles on the paper before passing it back over to her.

Ginny rolls her eyes. “Respect my process.”

“C’mon, Baker. You know I’m right.” Mike re-caps his pen and tucks it behind Ginny’s ear. 

“Lemme think about that.” Ginny pretends to consider, tapping her finger against her chin.

“What I’m saying is… you can’t live your life according to bullet points on a scrap of paper, you know? At some point you gotta just live.” 

Ginny presses herself against Mike’s chest and tucks her head under his chin. His beard hairs are scratchy but she doesn’t mind. He drapes an arm over her. 

“The lists make me feel like I’ve got some control over it though,” Ginny says, burrowing against Mike.

“Yeah, Baker. I get it,” he says. “I do.”

Ginny sighs and sweeps a hand through her hair. She feels Mike press his mouth against her forehead. 

Not knowing what the future holds for her is scary, but Ginny knows Mike is right. She wishes she had Mike’s blind faith. 

Ginny closes her eyes and hooks her thumb with Mike’s.

*** 

Things don’t really get much better from there. The team is committed to rebuilding, and familiar faces—trusted, friendly, loved faces—get sold off.

Ginny looks around the clubhouse every morning when she comes in and takes stock, wondering who’ll still be there tomorrow and the next day and the day after that.

Blip gets shipped out to Houston a few weeks before the deadline for a couple low-minors pitching prospects. Ginny and Evelyn split a bottle of wine while they pack up the house. Blip flew ahead to Anaheim to meet the Astros for their next series. 

Every few minutes, Ginny’s phone pings with a trade update or a text.

**Blip Sanders has been traded to the Houston Astros for two pitching prospects**

**yo did you see where blip ended up**

**Padres land two high upside arms in Sanders deal**

**hope u get traded to boston gin**

**Do you think you’ll be traded to?**

Next to go is Salvamini—Boston needs a left-handed bat off the bench and they’ve got middle infielders to spare—and then Andy gets sent to Seattle for an outfielder.

Pretty soon it feels like Ginny’s the only one left. 

And none of the rumors are promising. The Cubs sniff around but they already have the starting pitching, and Milwaukee kicks the tires but none of the contenders need a starting pitcher that badly that they’ll pony up for half a season of Ginny Baker.

“It could be worse,” Mike tells her. “Could be that nobody wants to trade for you. But you got Chicago and Milwaukee sniffing around.” 

They’re sitting together in the dugout, as they usually do, tossing sunflower seeds at an overturned batting helmet between their feet. Luke’s starting today and, unsurprisingly, it’s not going very well. It’s not due to anything Luke’s doing; he’s been pretty snakebit this year. And the defense has already committed three errors, leading to two unearned runs.

Ginny nudges her toe against the helmet and some of the seeds spill out onto the damp concrete. “I hadn’t thought about what it’d feel like to be stuck on a sinking ship,” she admits, keeping her voice low so the other coaches won’t overhear.

“I’ve been on plenty of sinking ships in my career,” Mike says. “More than I care to remember.”

Ginny waits for him to continue, offer some words of advice, but he doesn’t.

She sighs. It feels like she’s been doing a lot of that lately.

“Feels like it’s all slipping away,” she says, watching the shortstop boot another ground ball for their fourth error of the game. She hunkers down and crosses her arms over her chest.

It’s only the third inning. 

“That’s a little melodramatic, don’t you think?” Mike asks. 

“When I came up as a rookie, everything seemed so… so _possible_. The sky was limitless. And it’s all fizzling out. Six years and nothing. Not even a wild card to show for it.” Ginny pouts and kicks the helmet over.

“It’s not all a loss,” Mike says.

“No?” Ginny asks, looking over at him. 

Mike nudges her in the side with his elbow. “Nope.”

Ginny looks back out at the mess on the field. The bases are juiced with Marlins and Livan’s striding up to the plate, his dimples showing. Ginny thinks she can see sweat beading on Luke’s forehead and down his neck. Poor kid.

Ginny leans forward and cups her hands around her mouth. “Give him the high heat, Luke. He can’t touch ya.”

“That’s terrible advice,” Mike points out, drolly. “Livan kills fastballs up in the zone.”

“Just giving Luke my vote of confidence. He looks nervous,” Ginny says, with a laugh.

Mike starts laughing too.

Luke ends up striking Livan out on three straight fastballs up the zone to stamp out the Marlins’ threat. Ginny doesn’t let Mike live it down for the rest of the night.

*** 

The season ends in Cleveland, of all places. 

The leaves are already starting to change color, going from vibrant green to russet and orange and gold like God Himself had taken a paintbrush to them. There’s a nip to the air that Ginny is resentful of. 

Fall means postseason means offseason means… what, really? Free agency?

Mike?

Ginny hates playing in Cleveland, mostly because of the guy with the drums. She swears she can hear the thumping of those fucking drums in her sleep. 

Cleveland’s one of the teams that might come around in the offseason. Progressive Field’s not as sexy a destination as, say, Boston or New York, but they’ve had their run of the Central for half a decade and that’s not about to change anytime soon. 

Chicago might still need a starter and St. Louis will need to compensate for the retirement of Wainwright. 

There are plenty of potential landing spots but the only landing spot Ginny’s really thinking of as the Cleveland Indians bloop and bleed her out on a crisp fall day is Mike Lawson’s arms. 

God, that’s disgusting. That’s _sappy_ and _clichéd_.

But true. 

Ginny’s off her game, not getting any swings and misses, not seeing the big picture.

But when she pinpoints exactly _why_ she’s been distracted, her thoughts scattershot and her nerves jangled, it’s like everything she’s been wearing on her shoulders suddenly lifts off. Like it’s not even there. Ginny no longer feels like Atlas with the weight of the world bringing her to her knees.

Mike trots out to the mound with Devon at his heels, anyway.

“What’s the four-one-one?” Mike asks. He shoves his hands into his jacket pockets and when he breathes his breath comes out in white puffs.

Ginny flicks her eyes to Devon, behind Mike’s shoulder. “Get back behind the plate, Dev. This is between me and Captain Grumpy over here.”

“Captain Grumpy? You’re resorting to pet names now?” Devon turns and heads back to home plate, though, and says something to the ump, Wingate. 

The ump lifts off his mask and pulls a little pocket-sized notebook out of his shirt pocket, a constipated look on his face.

“What’s so important that you felt the need to waste our last mound visit?” Mike asks her, giving her a smirk.

“I get it,” Ginny says. “I finally get it.”

Wingate starts out for the mound, looking very much like a substitute teacher who’d rather be anywhere but here. 

“Get what?” Mike asks. “And make it snappy. Larry Wingate’s practically breathing down the back of my neck.”

“I mean, I get what you’ve been trying to tell me the whole time. These places, these parks and condos and cities aren’t home. You are. Wherever I go, it’ll be the right place because you’ll be there too.”

Mike breaks into a big, shining smile. “Aw, Baker. You old softie.” 

“Shut up and get back into the dugout, Lawson,” Ginny barks at him. 

Wingate glances from Ginny to Mike. 

“C’mon, Lawson,” he starts, but Ginny waves him off.

“He’s going,” she says.

“I’m going, I’m going.” Mike gives Ginny a wink before turning around and heading back to the dugout.

Ginny steps onto the rubber and takes a deep breath before reaching into her glove and feeling the ball under her fingertips. She digs her nails into the seams.

Devon flashes a sign. 

Screwball. Of course. Could it be anything else? 

Ginny nods, slips her fingers over the stitches, and rocks back into her motion. 

She lets the ball go. 

She lets it all go. 

The ball ends up where it’s meant to, anyway.


End file.
